Daily Lessons for Teaching Cutting for Stone

Lesson 1 (from Part One: Chapters 1 - 5)

Objective

Setting. Where a play, book or story takes place often affects the characters' personalities and the possibilities for plot. Setting is a usually carefully considered item in an author's set-up for fiction. "Cutting for Stone" takes place mainly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and in New York and Boston in the present time.

The objective of this lesson is to look at setting.

Lesson

1. Homework. Students will rewrite the basic plot of "Cutting for Stone" and set it in another era, explaining how the different setting changes the work. For example, what would be different if it was set in the 1940's?

2. Class discussion. Could "Cutting for Stone" have been set anywhere? How does the setting make this a unique story? How do the people in Ethiopia differ from the students' hometown? What about the Indian culture and characters? How did the setting affect the characters? The...